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Child obesity linked to disadvantage

Kate Hagan

Disadvantaged children are more likely to be overweight and obese at age four than children from more affluent backgrounds and the gap increases with age, a study of 5000 Australian children has found.

The study, published in the journal PLOS One, is the first to track rates of obesity in Australian children over time.

Researchers measured children's height and weight every two years from age four to age 10 to establish their body mass index (BMI), an estimate of fat based on height and weight.

They found the average BMI was higher for children from disadvantaged backgrounds at every age, in what lead researcher Melissa Wake, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, said was a worrying trend.

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''What we are seeing is that there's a really marked social gradient seeming to be entrenched by 10 years of age, before puberty,'' she said.

''It strengthens during childhood and we think those patterns are going to persist right through the life course and play out as increasing inequities in adulthood.''

Overall, the study found that at four years old 80 per cent of children were of normal weight, 15 per cent were overweight and 5 per cent were obese.

By age 10, 74 per cent of children were of normal weight, 20 per cent were overweight and 6 per cent were obese.

Researchers identified a strong link between obesity and disadvantage after dividing children into five socioeconomic groups based on their parents' income, occupation and education.

They found that 11.5 per cent of children in the most disadvantaged group were persistently obese throughout childhood, compared with 3.4 per cent of children in the most advantaged group.

''The most concerning trajectory was children who were already heavy at age four and tended to stay there for the next six years and get worse,'' Professor Wake said. ''They were much more strongly likely to be the most disadvantaged children.''

Professor Wake said the problem was not confined to the most disadvantaged group, and children's risk of being overweight or obese increased gradually as their family's socioeconomic position declined.

More work was needed to understand why disadvantaged children were at greater risk of being overweight or obese and what factors guarded against obesity in more affluent children, she said.

Professor Wake said it was likely that more affluent families had more resources to maintain a healthy lifestyle and lived in areas with parks and other design features that encouraged physical activity. ''Clearly targeting children with early overweight and low socioeconomic background, particularly those from socially disadvantaged families, must be a top intervention priority,'' she said.